The Kingpin

An exposé of the world's most notorious wildlife dealer, his special government friend, and his ambitious new plan

By Bryan Christy

Photograph by Mark Leong

On September 14, 1998, a thin, bespectacled Malaysian named Wong Keng Liang walked off Japan Airlines Flight 12 at Mexico City International Airport. He was dressed in faded blue jeans, a light-blue jacket, and a T-shirt emblazoned with a white iguana head. George Morrison, lead agent for Special Operations, the elite, five-person undercover unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was there to greet him. Within seconds of his arrest, Anson (the name by which Wong is known to wildlife traffickers and wildlife law enforcement officers around the world) was whisked downstairs in handcuffs by Mexican federales, to be held in the country's largest prison, the infamous Reclusorio Norte..............

photo: mark leongConfiscated at a market in Bangkok, Thailand, slow lorises are held as evidence at a police station. An international treaty prohibits trade in these nocturnal forest animals. Popular in Japan and Russia, they can sell for a thousand dollars each.